Nearing the tent, one rider stopped and checked his rifle. The sniper rolled the rock on her leg. The sniper set the rock down and checked the 30-30, set the sight to her puffy eye and then down again. It was hard to know intent. In minutes they will kill this man, or steal his horses, or both, or neither. Maybe ask to borrow a cup of sugar.

Hey you to the tent would be the neighborly thing. The stone in her hand had no fuse. Just normal granite. Why live on as helpless babies?

The riders were two tall beetles walking under hats, though color is nothing at night, a trick, the cones on the retina inventing color for differentiation only, another ploy, Dan had told her. One of his facts: there is no such thing as color.

’Course there is.

No sound when a tree falls either. Sound is a wave.

That makes no sense.

What was logic? Were these real men walking with rifles? Or waves? Projections of men? Dan’s theory didn’t hold. Shut up, she’d told him. I can’t think like that. Why not then contribute your atoms to a more worthy being? An ant. A slug.

With no moon their stealth raid would be stealthy indeed, a bona fide surprise attack, save for the sniper.

Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I’ve

played the fool—

Whiskey and cards and women, they made me

the devil’s tool—

A sniper changes it. They had not believed in, had not planned for spies with old borrowed saddle rifles on ridges, not even the possibility, and therefore had no Plan B. An umbrella on a ridge at night looks in profile exactly like a rock on a ridge at night. Sage swaddles the umbrella’s edges, blends it. A whiff of whiskey too, a flask inside his jacket in the tent. Are they all Damsels? Is that why we save them?

The riders wove closer through sage, stepping quiet slow toward the man’s small fire, just embers now. The Damsel should have doused it. The sniper rubbed her purple cheek. Poor, poor thing. The riders made signals, go left, go right.

I was just like a child with money; I flung it

away with a curse,

Feasting a fawning parasite,

or glutting a harlot’s purse;

Then back to the woods repentant, back to the

mill or the mine,

I, the worker of workers, everything in my line—

Allergies.

The man in the tent sneezed. He didn’t finish the song, and Lo! the riders had now spied the spy. Not pointing, just looking for a very long time.

A cough in the tent.

The yellow horse stood stiff-legged, ears pricked. The packhorse huffed at the riders, a huge guard dog with no fangs. Ginny set the umbrella down and it rolled sideways. She lay prone on her belly. Her rifle found one man’s face.